


Shelter from the Storm

by gonergone



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4155249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonergone/pseuds/gonergone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is, Bruce loves his job, even when he hates it.  And he loves his staff, even when everything goes wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter from the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreshBrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/gifts).



Bruce knew he was in trouble when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket at 8:30 on Monday morning. Monday mornings were always busy, the most hectic time of the week, and the last thing they needed were people calling out first thing. Even worse, if someone was calling his personal cell instead of the reference desk phone then it was one of his librarians calling out and his day was about to get very unpleasant indeed.

He pulled out his phone and sighed when he saw the number, the sinking feeling in his stomach intensifying. "Clint? What's going on?"

"Are you at work already?"

Bruce raised a shoulder to hold his phone in place while he started up the main desk computers. "Yeah, I'm just opening the ref desk."

He heard Clint sucked in a long breath. "My car won't start."

"Again?" Bruce flipped the calendar page over to the right date. "I thought you had the starter fixed last week."

"I did, but it's doing that thing again." Clint sighed. "It's probably the battery. I'll have to take it in to the shop again this weekend. I'll grab the next bus, and I'll probably be there in about an hour."

"An hour?" Bruce glanced down at the clock and tapped his finger on the desk. "Why don't I just come get you?"

Clint paused dubiously. "Are you sure?"

"Sure. It'll be faster."

"I'll owe you."

"You already owe me," Bruce reminded him. 

"I'll owe you _more_."

"You'd really better hope I never call in all these favors." He glanced at the clock. "I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

"Thanks, Bruce. I mean it. Pizza and beer on me, I promise."

"Sounds good," Bruce told him, pushing his phone back into his pocket and running a hand over his face, trying to ignore the long list of things he had wanted to accomplish that morning. He picked up the desk phone and called down to the tech services department, already pulling on his coat. 

*

Clint was sitting on the steps of his building watching the street when Bruce pulled up in front of him. He looked tired and his hair was a mess, the way it always got when he was anxious or frustrated and ran his hands through it continuously. He piled a couple of duffle bags into the trunk before hopping into the passenger seat with his messenger bag. "Hi." 

"Hi, yourself." Bruce leaned over the console to kiss him.

"Sorry about this." He gave Bruce a tired smile, running a hand through his hair. "Again."

"Don't worry about it. Maria can open, and Nat will be in pretty soon as back up, in case it gets busy. I will hold you to the pizza and beer, though." 

Clint nodded, snapping his seat belt on. "I wouldn't expect anything different."

Bruce looked over at him. The dark circles under his eyes were hard to miss. "Have you had any breakfast?"

"I had some coffee," Clint shrugged. "I was going to grab something from the vending machine before I started work, but I won't have time now."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "That's not _breakfast_." He glanced over at Clint again. "We'll stop for something." 

"McDonald's would be okay," Clint agreed.

Bruce sighed. "At least try to get something a little healthy."

"I think there's vegetables in the breakfast burrito," Clint told him. "Maybe." 

Bruce rolled his eyes, but obediently headed toward the closest fast food place. It helped that Clint's hand was on his knee the whole time.

*

Maria was behind the reference desk when Bruce handed her a breakfast burrito. "Clint swears they're not as bad as they look. Or smell, I hope." 

She took the bag with a little distaste. "Thanks?" She put it on the desk and scowled at him. "Don't think this means I'm not mad at you. I had shit to do this morning too. We don't just do _nothing_ upstairs, you know." 

"I know. I'm sorry."

Maria glared at him, but took the bag with her when she went stairs to her office. 

*

Monday mornings at the library were busy, Sam and Clint covering the desk while Bruce ran around doing a bunch of his supervisory tasks – getting the signed time sheets up to the library director's office for Steve's approval, sorting out the week's desk schedules and making sure the desk would have coverage during Clint's young adult program in the afternoon. When he looked up Sam was standing in the doorway of his office. 

"It's almost two. You planning on taking lunch?"

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face. He wasn't the least bit hungry after going out for breakfast, but if he didn't have something he'd have no energy for the afternoon on the desk at all.

"I didn't think so." Sam handed him a bag from Burger King, shrugging when Bruce made a face. "Clint said you could probably use some food."

Of course this would've been Clint's idea. "Why is it always fast food?" he asked, opening the bag gingerly and peering inside.

Sam shrugged. "I know you know better than I do, but I think he might be allergic to anything healthy. He lives on coffee and takeout, as far as I can tell. I hope you're not going to end up like him."

Bruce looked at him. "Why would you think I would?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "No reason, I guess." He gestured toward the bag. "You don't want it?"

Bruce sighed, pulling out the chicken sandwich. "I'll eat it. It's kind of late to try to go get something else now."

Sam smiled. "I figured you would. I should let you know upfront that most of your fries didn't make the trip. We didn't want you to have too much grease, so we did you a favor and took them off your hands for you."

Bruce rolled his eyes fondly. "Thanks."

"That's what friends are for. Oh, and Clint may have liberated about half your soda, too. He said you don't drink the stuff much anyway, so…" Sam shrugged.

"That was very kind of him," Bruce sighed, shaking the almost empty drink. "One thing you can say about Clint – he's always a giver."

Sam grinned at him. "That he is."

*

The closest school was three blocks away. The kids got out of school at 2:30, which meant they usually descended on the library by 2:45, filling up the previously-quiet space. Bruce watched them start to stream in and walked over to the young adult room. He stopped in the doorway and watched Clint set out pencils and exacto knives on the study tables. "You said it was a duct tape wallet craft today, right?"

Clint raised his arm, which had rolls of duct tape stacked along it from elbow to wrist. "Yup." 

"Wallets made from duct tape?" Bruce asked skeptically. "Really?"

"Sure." Clint pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and held it out for Bruce to examine. It had monkeys and bananas all over it. "See? You can even make these inside pockets for ID and credit cards – not that I need a lot of those," he said ruefully.

Bruce inspected it closely. "You actually use this?"

"Well, I had to create a bunch of prototypes to make sure I could walk my teens through it. They're actually really strong. Want one? I have some that have solid colors, if you're not into the monkeys." He smiled at Bruce. "Or you can sit in on my program and make your own. I have a ton of extra duct tape."

Bruce chuckled, handing it back to him. "Thanks, but I'm good." 

"When you see how awesome my wallet is, you'll wish you took me up on it," Clint told him. When he smiled, Bruce couldn't help but smile back. Clint's smile was always infectious; Bruce suspected it was one of the things that made him such a good young adult librarian.

*

Later, when Bruce poked his head into the program, he watched Clint walk from table to table, laughing as he showed the teens what to do. Clint wasn't the most extroverted person he had ever met, but he genuinely loved dealing with "his" teens, and was also pretty protective of them. Bruce had worked with a handful of young adult librarians since he'd gotten his MLS, but most of them were still half afraid of teenagers in general. Clint was one of the most natural with them, and, in Bruce's opinion, one of the best.

The first thing Clint had done in his interview was spill his coffee all over himself. The first thing he had said was, "Oh, _fuck_ , I'm so sorry, shit, shit, shit," as he mopped up the mess with a handful of tissues from Bruce's desk.

Bruce probably would've written him off at that moment, but the only reason he'd agreed to interview Clint anyway – the only applicant with a brand new MLS and no prior experience, was because Clint came highly recommended by Natasha, and Natasha was one of the best Children's librarians Bruce had worked with. He liked Natasha, and trusted her judgment. 

Even if Clint seemed like a complete disaster.

That had been enough to get Clint in the door, but if Bruce hadn't liked him in the interview, he never would've gotten the job. A funny thing happened halfway through the interview: Clint had smiled, and Bruce had smiled back, and from then on they had been on the same side.

And he'd given Clint the job.

*

Their first kiss was all Clint's fault. Technically, Bruce had done the kissing, but Clint had goaded him into it.  
Clint brought them both beers, setting them down to sweat on top of his mail. "What do you want to watch?" He sat down in the middle of the sofa, his knee knocking against Bruce's thigh.

Bruce shrugged. "I haven't seen anything, so whatever you want."

"I don't know how you never see anything," Clint told him. "You like movies. You like TV."

"I just never seem to have time," Bruce said. "Besides, it's more fun if we watch them together." It was, too; Clint always got way too into things and his enthusiasm was infectious. 

Clint gave him a half smile and started clicking through his DVR. "Tell me when something looks interesting," he ordered. 

Bruce half-watched the scrolling list and half-watched Clint's face. "Why do you have so many reality shows on here? When do you have time to watch all this?"

"I don't really watch them. They're really relaxing as background noise," Clint told him.

"Really?"

"Really." Clint pointed the remote at him. "Nothing is jumping out at you? Nothing at all?"

"You pick something." Bruce suggested. "Anything you want."

Clint's eyebrows raised. "You're seriously trusting my judgment?" 

"I seriously am."

"You might regret this."

"I usually do," Bruce agreed, "but I do love to live a little dangerously."

"Dangerously, huh?"

"Well, dangerously for a librarian. There are different standards for us."

"Low, pathetic standards."

" _Different_ standards," Bruce repeated. "We still take risks."

Clint laughed. "Do we? When's the last time you risked anything? We don't even like getting takeout from new restaurants."

"True," Bruce agreed. "What sort of risk are you looking for?"

"I don't know." Clint considered, tapping his fingers against his thigh. "Something."

"You could learn to play golf."

Clint laughed. "Something a little better than that."

"Something, huh?" Bruce hesitated. Clint was so close, warm against his side, his face relaxed and smiling. Bruce licked his lips. They had known each other for eight months at that point, and been good friends for about six. The last thing Bruce wanted was to doom that, doom _them_. He didn't have a lot of good friends, and being brave was not something Bruce had ever been good at. 

It was the biggest risk he could think of.

When he leaned toward Clint, he thought he felt him stiffen beside him, and he was already inwardly preparing his apologies, considering how the awkwardness might affect their jobs, their work. Then he felt Clint's lips meeting his own, Clint's hand on his cheek. The kiss was long and hot and changed everything. 

It was enough.

*

Tony Stark was sometimes the last person on Earth Bruce wanted to deal with.

He was kneeling over the broken public computer when Bruce came back from lunch, and it took an effort to not keep walking into his office.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Over the weekend it kept freezing, and yesterday it wouldn't turn on at all."

Tony made a considering noise. "What did they do to you, baby?" he asked the hard drive, leaning close to examine it.

"Nobody did anything," Bruce told him, rolling his eyes. "We just haven't gotten new machines in five years. Considering how often our computers are used, that's too long."

It was Stark's turn to roll his eyes. "Yes? Hello? I'm the one who's always telling _you_ that. You need to get the city to allocate some funds."

"That's likely," Bruce muttered. 

Stark shrugged, agreeing.

"Is it something you can fix?" Bruce sighed.

"Maybe. Probably. You're just lucky they sent _me_ out today. Give me an hour."

Bruce smiled, relieved, and was heading back to his office when Tony's voice stopped him.

"What's with you, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. You just seem kind of tense."

Bruce furrowed his brow. "I'm not tense."

"Are you sure?"

He held up his hands. "I'm not tense!"

Stark's eyebrows went up, and Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. He was beginning to get a headache. "I'll be in my office," he said quietly.

*

Reaching into his desk drawer for a pen, Bruce's fingers brushed against something unexpected, a broad smooth shape that he couldn't identify. He pulled it out into the glare of the florescent lights, and discovered it was a leopard print square of something that felt almost like plastic. Bruce turned it over, wondering where it had come from. It hadn't been there the day before. 

He blinked when he understood, opening the wallet and staring at a row of inner compartments. There was a post it note in familiar scrawl, "secret compartment 4 your eyes only" and an arrow pointing to a tiny hidden flap. Inside was $5,000 in Monopoly money, the orange and yellow bills that were almost certainly pilfered from the library's game. 

Bruce put the folded bills back to their hiding place and closed the wallet, sliding it into his back pocket. He tried to ignore the warm feeling it gave him and tried to focus on his work. Clint being Clint was probably always going to be the best part of his day, and he would never give that up for anything.

*

At the end of the day, as they were waiting for the last few patrons to check out at the circ desk and leave, Bruce found Clint in the young adult stacks, pulling books. He went up behind him, silent feet on the carpet, sliding his arms around Clint's waist and planting his lips on the back of his neck.

He felt, rather than heard, Clint's chuckle, and his hands came up to cover Bruce's. He turned around, Bruce's hands settling on his back.

"Ready to go?" Bruce asked.

"Almost." Clint took one step forward, pressing his body against Bruce before raising his head and kissing Bruce's chin, cheek, and lips. 

He threaded his fingers with Bruces' as they walked out, holding him close.


End file.
